


Times That Try Men's Souls

by gluupor



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Spies & Secret Agents, Violence, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-18 07:49:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21940714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gluupor/pseuds/gluupor
Summary: When Andrew loses Neil on a mission he has very little left to live for, except revenge. He's not going to rest until he burns the Ravens to the ground.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 32
Kudos: 366





	Times That Try Men's Souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fallinginlike](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallinginlike/gifts).



> This is a gift fic for @fallingin-like who guessed which Remix fic was mine. She asked for angst; hope you like it! Thank you to @filtereredred who read this over for me <3

Andrew wakes when the sunlight spills through the window directly onto his eyelids. He twitches in annoyance and curls to the side, pressing himself up against the sleep-warm skin of the man beside him. Neil makes a small, questioning sound and Andrew shushes him, wanting a few more minutes of sleep. Once he’s properly awake he’ll be in pre-mission focus mode and he wants to bask in the feeling of being warm and safe and relaxed in a bed with another person. He’d never thought he could ever have this, that the weight of someone else on the mattress could ever cause contentment instead of bone-deep fear.

He lasts five minutes before he can’t put it off any longer. He kisses the familiar starburst of freckles on Neil’s shoulder and pushes himself up until he’s sitting, the sheet pooling in his lap.

Neil shifts position and hums in disappointment as he mashes his face into Andrew’s hip. “More sleep,” he mumbles.

“Later,” promises Andrew. “Once we’re through today I’ll let you sleep as much as you want.”

Neil smiles without opening his eyes. “Vacation?” he asks. They’ve wanted one for years and haven’t found the time.

“Might as well,” shrugs Andrew, stretching until his back cracks. “We’re near lots of nice beaches.” He swats Neil’s side. “Work first.”

Neil groans in complaint but rolls onto his back and rubs his eyes. “Worried?” he asks. Andrew didn’t think he was projecting his unease but Neil’s always been able to see directly through his barriers. It used to frighten him; it still does, to be honest—he may now trust Neil to stay with him, but he’s human and fragile. So many things could happen to him.

“Everything just seems a little off,” he admits.

Neil’s already nodding in agreement before Andrew even finishes the sentence. “I know what you mean. But I went over everything with Kevin before we left; it seems to check out.”

Andrew sighs, because he’s been over this already. He’s not sure why he’s feeling wary; over the years, he’s learned to trust his instincts but there’s nothing obviously wrong he can put his finger on. It’s probably a combination of different circumstances, most of them out of his control, that are bothering him.

There’s the fact that he’s working with Neil at all, which hasn’t happened since they disclosed their relationship to HR, especially not as the only two agents on assignment. (They’d been together for over a year before they actually filed the paperwork; Andrew spent a long time objecting to the word ‘relationship’).

Not only is the assignment strange, but they’ve been given roles that are opposite to their strengths. Andrew is generally backup, waiting somewhere in a sniper’s nest and watching Neil’s back through his scope. That was what he was recruited to do, after all. He’d joined the army as soon as he turned eighteen, desperate to escape the long string of foster homes he grew up in. He was marked out almost right away for his marksmanship and patience and eidetic memory giving him the ability to recognize and calculate angles on the fly. Not long after he entered sniper training, he was tapped for black ops and after a couple years of that, Wymack found him and recruited him as an agent.

That’s what he’s good at. He’s rarely the face of the agency, the one slipping into different personas and lying charmingly. That’s Neil’s forte; Wymack had taken him from FBI custody where he’d ended up after a childhood of grifting with his mother.

Today, that’s not the case. Andrew’s the one being sent to meet their contact (at least his alter ego is a taciturn, Eastern European businessman, which is the type of character he can actually reliably play—once he was tasked with being a flamboyant fuckboy and Neil had almost ruined the whole operation by laughing so hard as Andrew did his best to channel his cousin Nicky) while Neil watches from a distance.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” says Neil, getting out of bed and heading to the shower.

“I trust you,” replies Andrew. “I still don’t like it.”

“I know,” says Neil, “but we’ll get through it and I’ll give you a reward this evening for being so amazing.”

Andrew can’t help the way he perks up at Neil’s suggestive tone. “What reward?”

Neil smirks over his shoulder as he disappears into the washroom. “Anything you want.”

* * *

The antsy feeling has only intensified by the time Andrew reaches the rendezvous point. He’s taken a seat at a local cafe and is pretending to read the newspaper he picked up a block away. It’s written in Spanish (which makes sense, they’re in Bogota) and although he’s fluent, he’s always been more comfortable speaking/understanding languages than reading them. Added to how alert he is about his surroundings, the words are basically gibberish. He’s either reading about sports or about police brutality; the only words he’s understood involve fistfights.

Neil’s voice is warm and soothing in his ear; he’s a block away on the top floor of an apartment building. The place he’s set up is abandoned and he’s got a good vantage point from just inside the balcony doors.

“On your ten,” he says suddenly. “That explains why I’m up here instead of down there.” Andrew wants to ask him what he’s talking about, but he can’t without giving himself away. “Going dark,” Neil says, and the comm in Andrew’s ear stops transmitting, letting him focus on the task at hand.

He doesn’t look up from his newspaper as the chair across the table is pulled out with an obnoxious scraping sound. He lets the contact stew for a couple minutes, before folding his paper and setting it on the table. It’s only because of his training and his years spent wallowing in apathy, unable to feel anything, that he doesn’t visibly react when he sees the man who has joined him.

All they knew coming into this was that someone high up in the Ravens organized crime ring had information for them and was possibly looking to defect. Kevin, their Ravens expert, had sworn the intel was legit, coming through appropriate channels. It didn’t make sense that Neil was assigned to this mission, due to his father’s ties to the Moriyamas (the family that runs the Ravens), but someone high up in the agency had apparently insisted. Andrew’s thankful now that the ignorant suit hadn’t interfered with Wymack enough to dictate that Neil take the meeting. Tetsuji Moriyama would definitely recognize him.

All of Andrew’s warning alarms are now pinging. Tetsuji Moriyama is unlikely to be interested in defecting or sharing information. He benefits greatly from the Ravens unsavoury enterprises and is second in the hierarchy only to his brother. This meeting is most likely a trap or a distraction of some kind. Andrew could leave, but he wants to see where this is going.

“Mr. Markovitch,” says Tetsuji in stilted Russian. “How nice to meet you.”

Andrew inclines his head minutely. “What do you want.” He’s thankful that he’s _supposed_ to be acting brusque and uninterested.

Tetsjui smiles, satisfied, and sits back in his chair. He says something innocuous and Andrew can tell he’s up to something, but he plays along. Neil would have contacted him with a warning if he noticed something wrong.

They make fake smalltalk for several minutes, discussing such scintillating topics as the weather and the local cuisine. Andrew bristles with put upon impatience.

“Well?” he demands. “Was this all you wanted to talk about?”

“Oh,” says Tetsuji, light dancing in his eyes. “You didn’t think this was about you, did you? No, Mr. Minyard, we’re here to take care of our own.” His gaze flicks to look unerringly up at the apartment where Neil is hidden.

Andrew is out of his seat instantly, turning and sprinting towards Neil. He doesn’t even care that he just offered his unprotected back to an enemy that clearly knows his identity; all he cares about is getting to Neil.

He’s desperately trying to contact him, dread growing in his stomach when Neil doesn’t respond. He pushes people out of his way, breathing heavily as his feet pound along the sidewalk.

He’s still half a block away from the apartment building when the entire top floor erupts outwards in a fiery explosion.

Andrew’s blown backwards by the blast, cracking his head against the concrete. Stars shoot across his vision as he fights to remain conscious. From his vantage point he’s looking directly up at the balcony of the apartment Neil was in: the glass from the windows has all been blown out and flames lick out of the apartment, billowing thick, black smoke up into the atmosphere.

“Neil,” he calls weakly, hoping against hope that Neil survived. He’s not ready to admit that Neil is gone. “Neil!”

In the distance, sirens begin to wail.

* * *

##### TWO YEARS LATER

Andrew flicks his cigarette filter into his cold coffee and immediately lights another one. His throat feels raw with ash and carcinogens as he closes his eyes and inhales, letting the scent and taste of the smoke inevitably draw his memories to a hot morning in Bogota and toxic smoke pouring out of a bombed out apartment. Smoking hadn’t been his vice since his teenage years and for months after Neil’s death he couldn’t even go near a cigarette without being instantly transported to lying on his back and watching his life go up in flames. Now, he smokes for exactly that reason, reminding himself of his purpose, of why he can’t give up yet: Neil is dead and his killers remain unpunished. For the last eight months Andrew has been intent on finding them and making them pay. He’s going to string them up and make them watch as he cuts out their hearts—see if they like how it feels. Then he’ll be free to rest.

The sun is hot against the back of his neck; he can practically feel his skin burning in real time. He’s practically nocturnal at this point and almost never leaves his apartment, so his skin tone can most accurately be described as “ghost”. He probably has a vitamin D deficiency.

He probably has a lot of deficiencies, now that he thinks about it. He can’t remember the last time he consumed anything other than coffee or cigarette smoke. He also can’t remember the last time he slept—it was at least a couple days ago, restless and short. He _can_ remember the last time he slept restfully without being drugged to oblivion; it was the same morning the smoke reminds him of.

He stands and stretches; his contact won’t be here for at least half an hour and if she has good intel then he’ll be off after the Ravens. He’s been keeping up his strict exercise and weights routine recently (he let himself completely go to pot in the months following Neil’s death but he’s pulled himself into better shape since he became set on his plan of revenge) and he’ll need food. Since he’s at a taco truck off a highway south of LA he might as well take advantage of it. If he gets food poisoning, he’ll come back and burn the place to the ground.

Andrew’s scarfed his way through three tacos and a burrito when an obnoxious pink convertible holding an obnoxious blonde woman drives up. Of all the people from his life _before_ he never would have expected Allison Reynolds to be the only one he’d still have contact with. None of the others speak to him anymore—or, more accurately, he refuses to speak to them and they’ve all stopped reaching out to him. It’s easier this way; he can’t stand their pity or attempts at comfort.

Reynolds doesn’t offer it. She’s the only other member of their group who knows what it’s like to have someone she loves killed by the Ravens—she’d been dating another agent, Seth, when he’d been captured a few years before Neil’s death. He’d been sent back to them in pieces. Andrew doesn’t like to admit it, but he thinks he and Reynolds are similar: running completely on spite and righteous anger.

Reynolds glances around the small rest stop and singles him out immediately, stalking over to him in her impractical heels. She takes a seat at the corrugated metal table he’s claimed and reaches out for one of his tortilla chips. He swats her hand away.

“I won’t give you the files if you don’t give me food,” she says, looking across the table at him shrewdly. “God, you look terrible.”

Andrew runs a hand along his jaw, feeling the too-long-to-be-called-stubble hair growing there. It has been several days since he bothered to shave. He doesn’t normally let it get this long; his facial hair grows in very blond in some places and darker in others, making his face oddly patchy. It’s just one more thing that he no longer cares about.

He reaches out for the file Reynolds is holding, pushing over his tortillas as trade. She hands it over willingly before shoving several whole chips into her mouth. Andrew skims through the file, finding it more informative than he’d dared hope.

“How’d you get so much?” he asks.

“Kevin,” she replies. “Used some of his old contacts, went undercover for a bit.”

Andrew hums thoughtfully. He didn’t think Kevin had the spine to do that; he’d long been terrified of what the Moriyamas would do to him after he defected to work for the agency over a decade ago.

“It’s because he feels guilty about what happened to Neil,” supplies Reynolds, though he didn’t ask.

Andrew shrugs one shoulder. Kevin _should_ feel guilty about what happened to Neil—his sworn-as-good intel had resulted in them walking into a trap. Andrew knows intellectually that it wasn’t completely Kevin’s fault—a couple months after Neil died, a mole for the Ravens was discovered among the higher ups at the agency, the same man who had insisted that Neil participate in the mission—but that didn’t stop Andrew from blaming Kevin and trying to choke him the first time he saw him after that fateful mission in Bogota.

Reynolds surveys Andrew again. “You know, the others were all surprised when you went off the deep end when Neil died,” she says thoughtfully. “Matt and Dan were convinced that your whole relationship was completely one-sided because Neil was clearly all starry-eyed over you but you always seemed indifferent. But it’s the opposite, isn’t it? It’s not that you don’t feel anything, but you feel things so deeply that you cut yourself off to protect yourself.”

He doesn’t feel like being psychoanalyzed by Allison Reynolds. If he wanted therapy, he wouldn’t have stopped seeing his agency shrink.

“What’s this part?” he asks, changing the subject and showing her a section in the files. “About the weapon?”

She shrugs. “Kevin couldn’t find anything more about it, only that it was top secret and incredibly dangerous.”

“And this?” It’s a diagram of a helmet-like object but the notes on it are terribly unclear. It seems to conduct electricity; he assumes it’s for torture but it’s part of the section on the weapon.

“No idea.”

“Is there going to be a mission to the base mentioned, the one outside of Moscow?”

“Nope.”

He gives her a flat look. “Are you being deliberately unhelpful?”

“I brought you the files, don’t forget,” she says sharply. “Anyway, no mission because Wymack can’t get the higher ups to sign off on it, not without more evidence that the Ravens are hostile.”

Andrew raises an incredulous eyebrow.

“I know, but according to them Neil’s death was ruled an accident. The official report said a gas leak caused the explosion.”

It feels like a band is tightening around his chest. “It wasn’t a gas leak,” he says gruffly. “I’ll find the goddamn evidence.”

She looks like the Cheshire Cat when she smiles. “Good; our hands are tied but you’re on an extended leave of absence. Look into that weapon, would you? Once we know what it is, we can likely move against them.”

Andrew nods distractedly, his mind already whirring with mission planning.

“Renee wants you to let her know when you’re going.”

“No.”

“It’s the condition on which I gave you the intel,” says Reynolds. “She’s insistent on being backup. She says you don’t have to see her or work with her, but she’s going to set up nearby so she can be called in if necessary.”

“And if I still say no?”

Reynold’s expression turns smug. “Then I won’t give you the additional memory stick of intel I have.”

Andrew sighs and holds out his hand. “Fine.”

“Pleasure doing business with you, Monster,” says Reynolds as she stands. She drops a USB drive into his hand. “Go burn them to the ground, will you?”

“I plan to.” He doesn’t care if he goes with them, as long as they’re all dead.

* * *

Almost six weeks later sees him no less determined but far more frustrated. He took a little over two weeks before he actually left on his mission, making sure he was well-rested (thank you, Ambien) and eating better. Then he spent over a week travelling through back channels on fake passports, taking a roundabout way to get to his destination. Since then, he’s been systematically working his way through the locations mentioned in the files Reynolds provided, most of them long-abandoned and stripped of any evidence.

The last place he’d searched had been the first to provide any information, giving him a location that hadn’t been in the files. He’s now infiltrating the aforementioned facility (after sending Renee a heads up with his plans, as he’d promised) and finding little except two bored, undertrained guards and a recently wiped server.

He takes the network access storage device anyway, in case Nicky or one of the other agency’s tech experts can possibly get something off of it, and then moves to clear the rest of the building. He doesn’t know what alerts him to the danger—one minute everything’s find and the next the back of his neck prickles with tension. He ducks, evading a garotte around the throat by milliseconds.

Spinning, he kicks out at his assailant, getting some distance between them. His mind whirs, calculating angles, odds, and taking in as much information as possible about the person who attacked him. His assailant is dressed all in black, with a mask that obscures their face. They are slighter than he is, but corded with muscles. He can’t tell their gender, although the fact that they’re only a few inches taller than him indicates female. He has no idea how this person was able to sneak up so close behind him; he should have heard them and even if he didn’t his body has always reacted to others in his personal space. Not even Renee can get this close without him reacting.

His attacker surveys him for a heartbeat, something familiar in their stance. He can’t pinpoint exactly who this person brings to mind; their physicality is similar to Kevin’s, which would make the most sense. This person is likely also affiliated with the Ravens.

The assailant strikes without warning. They are fast and strong and barely react to Andrew hitting vulnerable areas that generally make his opponents at least falter. Andrew quickly finds himself on the defensive, more than a little disconcerted by the black-clad figure’s unrelenting, single-minded attack. It makes him think that the person is more robotic than human.

Andrew can tell before long that he’s overmatched; he’s a second too slow to block all the precise hits and if he doesn’t do something to change the odds in his favour, he’s going to lose. He’s not willing to lose now, especially since he thinks he’s getting closer to answers about the Ravens’ secret weapon.

He twists away from the attack, using the movement to press a tiny button on his belt—a present put there by the brainiacs in the science division of the agency before he went on indeterminate hiatus. He’s not sure if anyone knows how many of his favourite toys he liberated and brought with him when he left.

This particular gadget runs a slight current through the outside of his gear; the next punch he absorbs makes his attacker draw in a sharp breath and back up a step. They let out a small, unhappy noise that twists Andrew’s guts unpleasantly. There’s something about it...

“Don’t like electricity?” Andrew grits out, not letting his thoughts distract him. “How shocking.” He’s not entirely sure where the pun came from, he’s feeling strangely off balance. He ignores the unsteadiness, lashing out at the attacker instead. They duck his attack easily and move away, but Andrew moves with them, somehow able to anticipate their movement. There’s something pinging at the back of his mind but he shuts it down to focus on the here and now.

His attacker rolls, unsheathing a knife and throwing it; Andrew dodges it and uses his momentum to tackle his foe to the ground. They grunt in pain from the current and wriggle wildly to get away. As they grapple and roll, Andrew loses his grip and the attacker eels away, losing their mask in the process. They flip to their feet and turn and Andrew breath catches in his throat.

Although his hair has been shorn close to his skull and there are new scars on his cheeks and no recognition in his blue eyes, he’d know that face anywhere.

“Neil?” he gasps out.

The Neil lookalike pauses minutely before launching into another attack. It’s all Andrew can do to keep away from his knife, his mind reeling. It’s not Neil, he tells himself. It’s a robot or a clone or… or… Neil died. He would have known if Neil survived.

The fake Neil (because he _has_ to be fake, Andrew can’t deal with him being the real Neil) has no sympathy for Andrew’s inner turmoil, fighting just as single-mindedly as he has been all along. His blank eyes are devoid of emotion or feeling or life. Andrew knows he’s at even more of a disadvantage now, not willing to kill this Neil; wanting to question him instead.

“Neil, _stop_ ,” he growls, unable to help himself.

Not-Neil doesn’t, but he does blink in confusion, his forehead wrinkling. Andrew takes advantage of his momentary distraction to wrestle him to the ground and wrap an arm around his neck. Neil bucks like a wild thing, trying to dislodge Andrew, but Andrew has years of rage and grief backing him up. He’s not about to lose this Neil now.

His movements slow as Andrew tightens his grip around his windpipe, his fingers scrabbling uselessly against Andrew’s arm. Andrew waits a couple beats after he falls completely still to let up the pressure. When Not-Neil doesn’t react, he lets up further, sitting up to secure him with the zip ties he carries with his supplies.

He allows himself one great, gasping breath before he shuts down everything he’s feeling. He doesn’t have time for that now; he has to figure out who or what the unconscious man at his feet is.

* * *

Andrew somehow gets back to his safehouse (he’s been moving places frequently; this one is an abandoned residence with a fair amount of added security. It’s standalone, which is fortunate as there are no neighbours to hear any noise his captive makes), carrying Not-Neil over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He dumps him onto the floor in the middle of the basement and then chains both his wrists and ankles with handcuffs, securing him to a rusty but sturdy pipe.

He backs up a couple steps and squats, surveying the person in front of him and trying not to hyperventilate. He’s not about to touch him while he’s unconscious so he examines the parts of him he can see and compares it to his vivid memories of Neil.

The shorn hair shows off the wounds on his head, nasty red welts at the base of the skull and near his temples. They look like burns and they have the appearance of repetitive injuries, like something hot was often applied to his head. Or electricity, he supposes, thinking back to the strange helmet-like contraption in the files Reynolds gave him.

There are other scars and marks he doesn’t recognize, but none of the older ones he expects to see are missing. There’s still a knife slash through his left eyebrow that gives him the appearance of always being slightly incredulous, courtesy of a close call in Madrid. His nose still has the bump in it from when it was broken by someone he antagonized in a bar in Dallas. The freckles on his neck are all in the correct places and Andrew attempts not to think about how many times he’s kissed them.

He dials his phone without conscious thought. “Get here,” is all he says when Renee picks up. There’s a single key press to acknowledge his request and the call drops. He braces his arms on his thighs and waits for her, watching his captive breathe in and out and desperately tries to find something to prove this isn’t Neil. That Neil hasn’t been held and tortured and made to forget Andrew while Andrew did nothing to save him. That he left Neil to think he’d been forgotten and abandoned.

Neil wakes about ten minutes after Andrew’s call to Renee. It’s subtle, he doesn’t give himself away, but Andrew’s watching him closely and knows him. He used to wake like this back when he and Andrew first got together and he didn’t know he was safe in the first few seconds after waking. He breathes carefully, cataloguing the room before opening his eyes and glaring unerringly in Andrew’s direction.

“Do you know me?” asks Andrew blandly. He tells himself that the answer doesn’t matter, that he’ll deal with it either way. Despite that, it feels like he’s swallowed something both sharp and hot when Neil’s eyes remain cold and calculating.

“ _Nyet_ ,” he says finally when it becomes apparent that Andrew will outlast him waiting for an answer.

Andrew lets the silence stretch; it’s always been a useful tactic for him when performing interrogations. Most people will eventually try to fill the silence. Neil always did, because his sharpest weapon was his tongue. This strange, damaged version of Neil does no such thing. He watches Andrew impassively, no recognition or emotion in his expression. It makes Andrew ache.

They watch each other until a soft knock echoes on the door at the top of the stairs. It follows a pattern that’s familiar to Andrew. “Come on,” he calls, his voice hoarse. He knows he should go up and greet Renee and explain to her what’s going on, but he doesn’t want to take his eyes off of Neil. He doesn’t think he’d be able to find the words anyway.

Renee comes down the stairs, gun held loosely. She looks calm and collected but Andrew can read the tension coming off of her as if it were visible, like wavy odour lines in a comic.

“Oh,” she says, faltering slightly as she steps down onto the cement floor. Andrew knows her reaction is for his benefit; if she wanted to she could keep a poker face through the end of the world. She glances from Neil, who is regarding her suspiciously, to Andrew who has watched her progress using only his peripheral vision, not willing to look away from Neil lest he disappear. “Is it him?” she asks, her voice low.

Andrew raises one shoulder, trying for nonchalant despite the fact that it’s the farthest thing from what he feels right now. He doesn’t even know who he’s pretending for: Renee won’t be fooled and Neil’s always been able to see through him, even back when they first met and didn’t know each other. “He has the right scars,” he says.

Renee sucks in a breath and her eyes turn sympathetic. Andrew turns so he can no longer see her. He definitely can’t handle kind words right now.

“What’s your plan?” she asks, completely businesslike.

Andrew breaths out in relief at her perceptiveness. “I called you.” He can barely put together a coherent thought; he needs someone else to be in charge right now and he needs it to be someone he can trust. He’s suddenly very grateful that Renee insisted on backing him up.

“I’ll make a few calls,” says Renee. “But first you need to react.”

That gets him to look at her fully. “I’m not—” he starts to protest.

“Go,” she cuts him off. Her tone isn’t harsh but it brooks no argument. “React. I can only give you half an hour and then we have to go.” She nods to where Neil is watching their conversation closely. “I’ll watch him.”

He knows when to admit defeat. He stands, wincing as his legs explode into pins and needles from his extended squat. He tears his eyes away from Neil and makes himself trudge up the stairs, continuing until he reaches the top floor of the house, the farthest point from the basement.

Where _Neil_ is. Actual Neil, his dead husband, here in the flesh. It’s not a word he often used; it never seemed strong enough for exactly what Neil meant to him. Very few people knew they’d gotten married. It had been for practical purposes at the time—physical proof for the agency that they were each other’s emergency contacts.

He leans against the nearest wall and slides down it until he can bury his head in his knees. Neil is alive, he’s fucking _alive_ , and that’s… that’s… He chokes on a sob that he can’t suppress. He can feel tears threatening and his throat has gone all dry and scratchy. He tries to stop it, to tell himself that he’s Andrew Minyard and he doesn’t fucking _cry_ but he loses composure before he’s even finished thinking his name and is suddenly, unexpectedly, bawling into his tactical pants.

He didn’t even cry at Neil’s _funeral_ for Christ’s sake. After the blast in Bogota he had been dry-eyed and stoic, not letting himself feel anything but empty. Even during the long nights when he couldn’t sleep—staring across the bed at the vacant spot where a warm, pliant body used to take up space—he hadn’t succumbed to tears. He hadn’t let himself cry since he was seven years old; it was a remnant of a more innocent childhood that he left behind forever.

Except Neil’s alive two floors below him and doesn’t recognize him. All the emotions from the past two years swamp him at once and drown him under their weight. The thing is that he was resigned. Neil was dead. He was never coming back, Andrew knew that. All he could do was punish the people who’d killed him and then either muddle along interminably in his grey misery or end things. Those were his options; that was his future.

But now— _now_ —Neil’s alive. And he might not remember him, but that’s fixable. There’s no longer finality and emptiness in Andrew’s future. Instead, his mind is thinking up traitorous thoughts, like that maybe he and Neil can _go home_ and _rest_. Hope is blooming in his chest and it _hurts_. It’s pushing all these feelings out of him and he hates it. He hasn’t felt hope for literal years and the pain of it takes his breath away.

It was easier, before. He longs for the steady blankness, because at least he knew how to deal with that. This hope is ridiculous; Neil appears to be missing all his memories, there’s no happy ending here. Even if he remembers Andrew, there’s no guarantee he feels the same after all the undoubtable trauma he’s undergone. And if he never remembers Andrew, there’s a high probability that he’ll not want anything to do with him. Andrew has no idea how he tricked Neil into loving him in the first place; he doubts he can replicate it.

His stupid tears seem to be subsiding, but now his nose is running and stuffed up and his head is aching (of course, that may be due to some of the blows he took during their fight). Crying is awful, he decides. He doesn’t know why anyone does this.

He pulls himself off the floor and goes into the nearest washroom to wash his face. It’s been longer than half an hour. He doubts Renee will chastise him.

* * *

“You can run,” says Renee apropos of nothing about two hours later. Andrew had been right that she made no comment about his reddened eyes or taking longer than half an hour to pull himself together. She’d just calmly said that she had transport waiting for them and they’d have to sedate Neil to prevent any escape attempts.

Andrew hadn’t been happy about drugging Neil as he struggled against them, but he admitted its necessity. Neil was a wildcard and he had no idea how he would react to what was essentially a kidnapping. Andrew wasn’t willing to give him a chance to escape.

They’d carried Neil’s unconscious body out to Renee’s car and shoved him into the back seat, keeping his hands and ankles handcuffed together. Andrew had climbed in next to him, cushioning his head in his lap. He rested a hand on his head, telling himself that it was in case Neil woke up hostile and had nothing to do with wanting to keep a hold of him. The texture of Neil’s shaved head was prickly yet surprisingly soft under his palm.

He tried to keep his eyes peeled for a tail during their lackadaisical route to wherever Renee had arranged transport but his gaze kept returning to Neil’s slackened face. He looked so young in sleep; his long eyelashes brushing the tops of his cheekbones. Despite the fact that they were in a car being driven by someone else, he kept forgetting they weren’t alone.

He starts when Renee speaks. “What?” he asks, blinking back to the present.

“We can go East, cross the border,” says Renee, completely without emotion. “You can disappear, hide. I’d never tell anyone.”

Andrew considers it. Truthfully, it’s what he wants, to squirrel himself and Neil away where no one could ever find or hurt either of them ever again. But he doesn’t know the extent of Neil’s mental and physical injuries. He’s unlikely to be able to help him alone.

“No,” he tells Renee. “We have to go home.”

She nods, as if she was expecting that answer. “I only mention it because they’re going to separate you as soon as we land.”

Andrew tenses, tightening his hold on Neil so no one can make him let go.

“I know,” says Renee, reacting to the disapproving growl Andrew can’t stop himself from making. “But you’ve been on leave for years. They’re not letting you into the agency without a debrief and he’s supposedly an agent that was killed in action. You know they won’t let you stay with him, at least until Wymack clears you.”

Andrew does know this, but he can’t help hating it. If he hadn’t already realized that running wasn’t the best course of action, he might have considered it. Which was obviously the reasoning behind Renee’s line of questioning.

“You’ll stay with him,” he says, not quite a question. “You won’t let them—”

“I’ll stay with him,” she says, gently cutting him off. “Nothing bad is going to happen to him.”

Andrew barks half a laugh, the sound rusty and unpracticed.

“Nothing else bad will happen to him,” she amends.

He scoffs and looks back down at Neil’s sleeping face, stopping himself from tracing the familiar beloved features.

It’s less than half an hour later that Renee pulls into an abandoned airstrip. Although, abandoned is probably not the right word, since there’s a small plane waiting for them. He recognizes the type of plane; these are used by the agencies mainly for medical evacs. There’s no way it could have gotten here so quickly. He gives Renee a look in the rearview mirror.

“I set up contingencies. I could only imagine what shape you’d be in if you did actually call me,” she replies to his unspoken question. “I assumed it was going to be a body retrieval.”

He looks away and doesn’t bother to correct her. It’s not like she’s wrong; if he’d found the people he was looking for there’s no guarantee he would have survived the encounter. If he succeeded in killing them, he probably wouldn’t have tried that hard to stay alive.

Two crew come out of the airplane to greet them; he doesn’t recognize them by sight but he knows them to be medical personnel of the agency. They come around the car to reach for Neil, but Andrew gathers as much of him up as he can and growls, “Don’t touch us.” He’s not going to let anyone else touch Neil and he’s not going to let go of him until someone physically makes him.

A soft word from Renee smooths over the awkwardness and the two of them back off and let Andrew carry Neil onto the plane. There’s a medical gurney waiting for him, secured in such a way that it won’t move during liftoff or touchdown. Andrew lays Neil on the cot and undoes the handcuffs that have begun to chafe him, opting instead for the padded restraints.

“Sorry,” he whispers, to the Neil-that-was. “Sorry, sorry.” He has no choice, but it still makes him feel like garbage.

Renee’s still acting as a barrier between him and the medical staff. She approaches him, shuffling her feet loudly.

“We have to strap in for takeoff,” she says. “And they need to give Neil an IV to keep him sedated for the trip.”

“Don’t touch him,” he protests instantly.

“Katelyn won’t hurt him,” says Renee placatingly.

Andrew’s eyes snap to the female crew member, realizing that he does know her. She’s the one Aaron took up with about a month before Neil died. Andrew had no interest in getting to know her, especially after he and Aaron stopped talking once Aaron told Andrew that Neil “wasn’t worth” destroying himself over. It was the first and only time Andrew ever turned his violence against his twin and they haven’t spoken since.

Katelyn holds up her hands, showing him she’s not carrying anything harmful. “Only an IV,” she says. “You can watch.”

He relents minutely, enough to let her near. She inserts the needle in Neil’s arm quickly and professionally, touching him only briefly in a clinical way. Although she eyes Andrew nervously, her hands are steady and sure.

He examines the saline and the sedative closely before he lets her attach those to Neil’s IV and he waits for her to leave and everyone else to back away before he leaves Neil’s side to prepare for takeoff. His seat is next to Renee’s and she’s practically radiating serenity, as if hoping she’ll infect him and he’ll calm the fuck down. He doesn’t have high hopes for her success.

* * *

Andrew spends the entire flight vibrating in place and watching Neil sleep like a giant creeper. Renee manages to grab some shut eye and Andrew doesn’t attack anyone in the absence of her interference, so it’s a win all around.

The next part is going to be the hardest, what with Andrew’s usual iron control being completely in tatters. He knows what’s going to happen—Renee _told him_ what’s going to happen—but he can still feel all his muscles tensing in anticipation of fighting anyone who tries to take Neil from him.

It appears that he and Renee weren’t the only ones to consider his reaction. Director Wymack is waiting for them to disembark and he’s surrounded with people Andrew knows and has previously trusted with his life. Andrew closes his eyes and forcibly gathers up the shreds of his control.

“Stay with him,” he says to Renee.

“I will.”

“I’m his next of kin, don’t let them—”

“I won’t.”

He pries his fingers one by one off the bar of Neil’s gurney and lets himself be led away.

Bee, his long-time therapist, is the one who’s escorting him. He stopped seeing her in the wake of Neil’s death when he had no desire to get better. She tried to keep in contact with him afterwards, but she didn’t pressure him or argue with him. She knew better than almost anyone how stubborn he could be if he put his mind to it. She was well aware that nothing would help him when he was actively resisting aid.

She takes him to the on-site living quarters; the room is a step above a holding cell, but it has its own bathroom complete with a shower and there’s no video surveillance. He’s not being treated as a hostile, then. He strongly suspects that if he doesn’t consent to stay here, he will be.

“Wash up, get some rest,” she says as she opens the door. “Call me if you need me. Otherwise, your debrief will likely be in a couple hours.”

He nods and steps past her, letting his hand rest on her arm. “I’m going to need you,” he admits. “Not yet, but soon.”

She clasps his hand with her own. “I know. I’ll be waiting.”

* * *

He explores the room thoroughly, trying to distract himself from his own thoughts. To prevent restless pacing he showers, turning the heat as hot as his skin can stand. The water beating down on his muscles feels good and releases some of his tension. He didn’t realize how sore he was—both from his fight with Neil and from lack of relaxation since then—until his muscles start to unlock.

There’s no limit to the hot water, so he stays in the shower until his skin starts to wrinkle and prune. He towels off and dresses in provided sweatpants and t-shirt. His adrenaline rush is finally starting to wear off, leaving him trembling and exhausted. He lays down in the small bed, assuming he won’t be able to sleep, but wanting to get as much rest as possible.

A knock at the door wakes him some time later. He blinks against the lights that he didn’t bother to turn off before he laid down. He’s surprised that he slept and he’s groggy and disoriented, not sure how long he’s been unconscious. He sits up and stretches, one of his shoulders protesting vehemently, and then answers the door.

It’s Wymack. He’s always respected his boss a lot but the grim look on his face isn’t promising.

“Neil?” Andrew asks immediately.

“No change,” says Wymack. “We need your permission to do an MRI. Abby says they need a better idea of the damage done to his brain.”

“An MRI,” agrees Andrew. “Nothing else, and no one touches him while he’s unconscious.”

“Renee’s making sure of that,” says Wymack. “Come with me; it’s time to debrief.”

“I want to see Neil.”

“Debrief first; then we’ll see.”

Andrew plants himself in the doorway. “I want your word,” he says.

Wymack closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “If there’s no red flags, then, yes, you can see Neil.”

Andrew follows after him into a standard interrogation room. He hasn’t ever spent much time in rooms like this. He’s not skilled at interrogations that require talking. The only time he’s been in these rooms is during his own debriefs and screening interviews. Or to sit silently and make people squirm.

Wymack sighs as he sits and points out the cameras and recording equipment before he starts his questions. Andrew answers him honestly, informing him of all his actions between when he was sent on extended leave and when he accidentally came across Neil.

The only thing he won’t reveal is where he got the intel that sent him there in the first place. He’s not Reynolds’ biggest fan, but he’s never been a snitch and he’s grateful for what she did for him.

He maintains that he “found” the intel. Wymack clearly doesn’t believe him and is getting more and more irritated until finally Reynolds herself bursts into the room.

“I gave it to him,” she says simply, her chin tilted defiantly.

Wymack slides his glance to Andrew. “That true?” he asks.

“I found it on the ground,” reiterates Andrew stubbornly.

“Come off it, Monster,” sneers Reynolds. “We both know I gave it to you. Tell him. The sooner this farce ends the sooner you can get to your man.”

Andrew regards her silently for a few moments, unsure of why she’s doing this for him. “Reynolds provided the intel,” he says reluctantly.

“Allison…” sighs Wymack.

“We both know that nothing would have been done about it here,” says Reynolds.

“You’re facing consequences for breaching agency rules.” Wymack doesn’t sound particularly angry, mostly resigned.

She shrugs, looking unconcerned. “We found Neil and a shitload of evidence, didn’t we? I can’t imagine I’ll be that harshly punished.”

“Fine,” says Wymack. He turns back to Andrew. “You’re cleared.” He slides his access pass back across the table. “Neil’s in the B14 medical suite.”

Andrew is out of the room without any further discussion. He doesn’t run but he also doesn’t dawdle on his way to the medical wing, slamming through any security doors that dare bar his way.

He finds Renee standing guard outside one of the medical rooms reserved for hostiles, watching Neil through a one-way mirror. He’s still sedated and hooked up to IVs, looking small and frail in the hospital bed.

Renee sways on her feet as Andrew takes up a post beside her. “He woke for a bit,” she says, “but he had to be sedated again for the MRI.”

“How is he?” he asks.

“No change,” she replies. “He didn’t recognize Abby or Matt or Dan. But his fingerprints and retinal scans and blood work all match. He really is Neil.”

Andrew was already 90% sure of that and it still feels like someone kicked him in the heart. “And what did the MRI show?”

“A lot of damage,” says Renee, not sugar coating anything in her usual no-nonsense way. “Abby’s not sure he’ll ever recover his memories.”

Andrew nods in understanding. He’s not sure it matters. Neil is Neil. Andrew’s going to stick with him whether he remembers anything or not. “Get some rest,” he says, noting her obvious exhaustion. She’s been standing guard for hours by now.

“I’ll be back soon,” she says, and leaves him alone.

He’s not alone for long. His and Neil’s former coworkers keep drifting by, glancing at Andrew under their eyelashes and gaping openly at Neil. Andrew would make them stop, but he understands. He, also, can’t stop looking at Neil.

Very few of them bother to say anything to Andrew. His cousin Nicky tries to hug him, which Andrew ducks away from. He has no clue why Nicky thought that was a good idea; he’s never allowed people to touch him. Nicky chatters for a bit, talking mainly about his efforts to retrieve the data from the network storage device Andrew retrieved, but his eyes keep filling with tears whenever he looks at Neil and he leaves before long, offering to bring Andrew food.

Kevin shows up eventually. He opens his mouth as if to speak more than once, but he never manages to say anything. After fifteen minutes he shakes his head and leaves.

He’s followed closely by Aaron, who takes up a silent post at Andrew’s side. “There’s a planning meeting and briefing in half an hour,” he says, breaking their mutual silence. “They’ve finally greenlit an assault on the Ravens.”

Andrew shakes his head. He has better places to be right now.

Aaron glances around and lowers his voice. “I’ll make sure Tetsuji doesn’t come out of our assault alive.”

Andrew nods. He recognizes a peace offering when he’s given one. At any other time he’d be first in line to kill the man who set up Neil, but he can’t make himself care about that with Neil lying damaged in a hospital bed.

“What’s your plan?” Aaron asks, nodding to Neil’s too-thin frame through the glass.

“Get him better,” croaks Andrew, his voice slow from disuse. “Figure the rest out later.” His chest burns with longing.

Abby approaches him some time later, talking through Neil’s prognosis and treatment options. Andrew nods through her spiel absently, trusting his eidetic memory to take in all the details of what she’s saying. He asks a couple questions and approves a treatment plan, but in truth there’s very little she can do for him. They have to wait and see if he regains any of his memories on his own.

By the time Abby’s finished, Neil is starting to stir. Andrew takes a breath and enters his room, waiting for Neil to blink awake and look around curiously. His gaze catches on Andrew and stays, his expression puzzled instead of blankly hostile as it had been before.

“Do you know who I am?” asks Andrew, hope almost choking him.

Neil’s brow furrows. “No…” he says, but he sounds unsure. “Except…”

Andrew waits with baited breath.

“...Andrew?” says Neil, barely audible. “I don’t… I don’t remember you, but I know you.”

“You do,” says Andrew on an exhale. He tries to convince himself that Neil is playing him. That he overheard Andrew’s name somewhere (he thinks back carefully: neither he nor Renee said it in Neil’s presence, even when he was unconscious) and is preying on his badly concealing emotions.

“You’re mine, aren’t you?” asks Neil in a small voice.

“I am.” That has been true for almost as long as Andrew’s known him.

Neil looks around the room, his expression tense. “What’s going to happen to me now?”

Andrew takes a seat next to Neil’s bed. “Now…” he says. “Right now, you’re going to rest. And then I’m going to take you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on tumblr [@gluupor](http://gluupor.tumblr.com).
> 
> I didn't realize until I'd already written this that I [really have a thing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18339167/chapters/43415678) [for messing with](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20220229) [Neil's memory](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13345323/chapters/30553215), huh?


End file.
